# Introducing Colony 44 trailer
“We should make a online game.” I told that to myself a years ago. I know, you need a large teams of experienced developers to archieve that. You need a large budget to buy game assets or whatever. Then you need a large infrastructure and computation power for servers. And ofcourse you need to make a interresting game and all that marketing sh… schedule as a cherry on the cake. I realized that. But I still want to make a online game!
Hutia Games is an ambitious project now. So why not the online game. But there should be a compromise for sure.
1) Programming team
First plan is some game scaffold. Which should be relatively manageable. I believe (and saw it in the past) that one experienced person can in some circumstances do the work of 3-10 people. That depends on knowledge and experience too (and improvisation).
2) Concept art and models
I am playing on the 3D artist even it is not recommended. Why? If you are making models by yourself you can make what you need in one style. Instead of buying overpriced models with different styles. Sometimes you can mask stuff with particle effects. That is why the most games today are shiny and bright (maybe just for fancy thumbnails). But as a player you can’t focus on more than few things at the same time. I believe that a shiny game is not the way. The content can be generated procedurally (and by players). There should be some fun factor too.
3) Computation hardware and servers
You don’t need your own infrastructure theese days. You just need a cloud account somewhere and design your server apps with proper technology to be easily scalable (you just change a configuration if you need more resources). At first you need some test players and for that it shoud be a simple virtual server with enough of a broadband connectivity. Then you maybe found some sponsor to scale resources or I dont know.
4) Interresting game topic
I think, if game is interresting to play enough, it doesn’t need perfect graphics at all. You are not making game for everybody. But still there are a lot of people maybe looking for what are you offering. For example they like pixelated games or games harder to play, or games without overflow of shiny particles or games where are nutrias or robots (or both). As Indie you have no hierarchy of managers, so you can experiment and change things and find a optimum. Well, now it looks more achievable (at least on the paper). So lets make an online game.
5) The main story
“Colony #44 is about people taken from Earth 100 years ago (year 2397) to this distant part of the universe. Colony was then abbandoned because it was not longer worthy to get there from Earth or transport people to another asteroid fields (it was cheaper to let them alone)… Until spacetime bending device was invented. And only known resource of chemical element for catalystic reaction during bending of space time to time space (and another dimensions - blah blah blah…) is Colony #44.”
Ok, I just want to find a reason to make some speceships. I have already started programming some spaceship battle AI. Then I made a fancy class called AdmiralManager with methods to setting every ship state.
Unity3D is a free tool to make wonderful animations and infographics too. So why not a trailer. However, I don’t knew how to make a trailer. But I am learning fast (sometimes) and after watching few hours of trailers i made some notes. And after I found a proper music with factory noises…
I don’t want to call that a trailer much. But there is no a proffesional video editor around so lets just glue something together. I just put AdmiralManager to timeline and let the ships to find their targets at own. As you can see, they are avoiding other objects in a 3D space. Firing with lasers and rockets too. There should be more particle effects maybe for some laser spikes etc. But I think that it is much better result than just talking.
Now I can theoretically hire some artist and let him recreate the models etc. Not need to explain specs, not need to exchange lot of concept art drawings. “Just make it looks better, with better shape, better textures in that style as it is. Please…”. But it is too early for that. At some point we will need more people to archieve that goal.
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Thursday, Feb 20, 2020
